Fairfax won't back down over bag ban

"For us to cave into a whining plastics industry is not what we should do," said Councilman Lew Tremaine. "We should stand up to these guys. These are the last dying throes of an industry on its way out."

Representatives of the plastics industry say Fairfax's bag ban encourages residents to use paper bags in the grocery stores, restaurants and retailers where plastic will be barred.

"Banning plastic is forcing many people into paper," said Kevin Kelly, chief executive officer of Emerald Packaging in Union City. "Since most people don't send their paper off to be composted, it ends up in the landfill. Paper takes up more space in landfills than plastic by a significant margin. Cities that are banning plastic are basically guaranteeing that their landfills will fill up more quickly with paper.

"It looks cool to ban plastics," Kelly said. "But the results are not going to be cool."

That contention has prompted Emerald Packaging to threaten a lawsuit that would require Fairfax to complete a costly environmental impact report to evaluate what Kelly called the "unintended consequences" of banning plastic bags.

Tremaine said such an environmental report was unnecessary.

"We have damn near a community consensus on this," the councilman said. "It's patently absurd that we would have to do an environmental impact report. Common sense tells you that this is good for the environment. This is a ploy, and I'm not in any mood to buy into it."

Environmental leaders agreed, arguing that the use of plastic bags causes more damage than the use of paper.

"At least paper will biodegrade, and not poison the earth," said Kiki La Porta, president of Sustainable Marin. "Plastic never turns to anything else. It's always plastic. Nothing grows in it. It doesn't separate into individual components. We're covering the Earth with a layer of plastic. It's an avalanche we must address."

Yet spokesmen for the plastics industry counter that towns like Fairfax aren't doing enough to encourage recycling of plastic bags. The North Bay Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling has notified the town of its intent to file a lawsuit that also demands an environmental review of the anti-bag ordinance.

"There's a significant market for recycled plastic," Kelly said. "The costs for virgin plastic has gone through the roof with the rise in oil prices, and people are scrounging for all the recycled plastic they can get their hands on."

Eventually, Kelly said, cities and towns could add plastic bags to their curbside recycling programs, an approach he said is being tried in parts of Southern California's Orange County.

"We ask cities and counties to let the processes get in place, and give us a few years to do it successfully," Kelly said.

While customers currently only recycle about 3 percent of plastic grocery bags, a 2006 state law requiring grocery and drug stores to place recycling bins outside their businesses could encourage more people to do so, Kelly said.

Tremaine doubts plastic bags could be effectively recycled.

"It's a nice thought, except that crap can't be recycled," Tremaine said. "It's the same argument that was made against the polystyrene ban all over again. The industry claimed that product was recyclable, but it wasn't. They warehoused it because they couldn't do anything with it. And it's the same with plastic bags. By the time you get it down to that thin film, the plastic is used up. It's done. There's no market for it."

Fairfax's Aug. 1 ordinance recommends the use of reusable canvas bags in place of paper or plastic. Fairfax based its ordinance on a similar measure in San Francisco. Other cities, such as Oakland and Phoenix, are considering bans. Marin County supervisors have called for a voluntary ban on bags at stores within unincorporated areas.

Tremaine doesn't believe such a voluntary ban would be effective in Fairfax.

"The voluntary thing is an ad hoc genuflection to the problem," Tremaine said. "There needs to be a real ban. These things need to be taken out of the waste and litter stream."

Once the ordinance becomes law, on Feb. 10, 2008, those who fail to comply could be fined $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense and $500 for every subsequent infraction.

The outcome of the legal challenge to Fairfax's ordinance could influence other communities considering bag bans. San Anselmo's Quality of Life Commission considered the issue at its meeting Monday.

"I don't know if a ban is under consideration, but it's definitely an issue that is getting attention," said San Anselmo Mayor Wayne Cooper. "When it last came up for discussion, we were going to be endeavoring to get the local stores to make reusable bags available either at a reduced cost or for free. We'd like to encourage them to make plastic less available."